India is taking another important step into the group of leading countries in defense technology, after successfully developing the Gallium Nitride monolithic microwave integrated circuit (GaN MMIC), which is a high-performance semiconductor chip for advanced military applications.
This chip is designed to power and control many strategic platforms, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), missiles, radar, military aircraft and naval vessels.
With superior performance, GaN MMIC is considered an important platform for modern combat systems, where high requirements are required for processing speed, durability and stability.
Unlike traditional silicon-based semiconductors, GaN MMIC is made from Gallium Nitride compound material, allowing faster switching, more energy saving and stable operation in harsh environments.
Thanks to its durable chemical properties, this type of chip can operate at very high voltage and temperature, with low signal degradation, which is a key factor in military applications that require high accuracy.
Notably, the Gallium Nitride material has a heat tolerance of up to about 1,000 degrees Celsius, far exceeding the limits of many conventional semiconductors.
Although only about 3.5 x 3 mm in size, a single GaN chip can still generate power up to 30 watts, and operate about 300 times faster than silicon-based solutions.
In addition to its role in radar systems and guided weapons, complex semiconductor technology also supports converting physical elements such as motion, heat, sound, light and pressure into electronic signals.
Thanks to that, defense systems can track targets more accurately and monitor equipment performance in real time.
According to researchers, the GaN MMIC project is not only of technical significance but also a strategic step to reduce India's dependence on foreign defense semiconductor suppliers.
Ms. Meena Mishra - Director of the Solid State Physics Laboratory (an important research agency of the Defense Research and Development Organization - DRDO of India) - said that this achievement is the result of close coordination between many research groups and the Gallium Arsenide Support Technology Center.
The production process of each chip is considered extremely strict, with a manufacturing and testing time of about 80 days, going through hundreds of stages requiring almost absolute accuracy.
With this step forward, India officially joins the group of countries with advanced military chip development capabilities, along with the US, France, Russia, Germany, South Korea and China. This is considered an important milestone in the country's efforts to achieve technological autonomy and modernize its defense industry.
